Friday's top four join the top four from Wednesday's Creek Nation Casino
Qualifier (Davey Ray, Brad Kuhn, Casey Shuman and Donnie Ray Crawford)
and the top four from Thursday's Bass Pro Shops Qualifier (Shane Cottle,
Justin Allgaier, J.J. Yeley and Jason Leffler).

Darland made what was already a good night even better by drawing the
pole position for Saturday night's O'Reilly Chili Bowl Midget Nationals
50-lap championship main event. Darland will be flanked on the front row
by Thursday's Bass Pro Shops Qualifying Night winner Shane Cottle.

"This is not just another race, that's for sure," Darland commented of a
potential Chili Bowl win on Saturday night. "But once you get out there
on the track, you've just got to try to calm yourself. It's definitely
bigger than just a normal race and starting on the pole, that always
makes me a little nervous but I wouldn't trade him (Stewart) for where
he's starting. That's where I want to start, we are where we wanna be so
hopefully we can pull it off."

While Darland earned the front row outside through heat and qualifying
race action, it was Altig making a name for himself by first making a
mid-race pass of Jason Martin to win the sixth heat and then charging
from sixth to make a dramatic last corner move around Terry McCarl in the
third qualifying race to earn the pole position.

While Altig was now four-for-four (including a heat and feature win on
Tuesday) in on-track Chili Bowl competition, Darland proved to be too
stout in the Wilke-Pak RAJO Racing Stanton Mopar No. 5 Spike.

Darland shot into the lead at the drop of the green flag and weathered a
number of caution flags over the distance to secure the win.

"I knew if I hit my lines just right, and I didn't hit it real good those
last three or four laps, but I also knew that if I didn't really just
screw it up totally there wasn't really much anywhere else either so as
long as I didn't hit the wall down the straightaways was my main
concern," Darland commented afterward. "Me and Tony (Stewart) talked
about it that running first or second really doesn't matter. It does
matter now that you think about it since the winners all start up front
and second place starts behind that, so I'm glad I didn't think about
that earlier."

Behind him, positions swapped hands several times, with Neely first
racing past Altig for the runner-up slot on the second circuit. In those
opening two laps, Stewart quickly advanced from his sixth starting
position to fourth.

Stewart moved in on Altig several times and successfully took over third
only to have the moves negated by caution flags. Stewart was finally
able to make the move stick on the 13th round, then wasted little time
disposing of Neely for second by charging into the position a lap later.

Stewart tried to mount a challenge on Darland but was unable to make a
serious bid, settling for second in the Tony Stewart Motorsports
Chevrolet/Bass Pro No. 20 Spike.Making a rare Midget start, Stewart commented that, "It took both those
practice sessions that we got on Tuesday to get the bugs out and even a
little bit today in the practice, it took a couple of laps to really
start getting comfortable again.

"I feel like I'm a little bit behind the eight ball this year because of
what happened," he explained of last year's Chili Bowl run that was cut
short due to a Qualifying night flip. "With the way the second heat and
the main turned out, I think we're right on par with where we need to be
as far as confidence and feeling like we're back in the groove again."

Neely and Altig diced for the third position over the final rounds, with
Neely taking the show position aboard Larry Gardner's Frampton
Chevy-powered CB Fabricating No. 35 Stealth.

"If he (Altig) wouldn't have been in fourth, I would have got crashed,"
Neely explained. "We just got real free there on the last ten laps, we
tried a new tire and it just didn't really work like we thought but I'm
happy to get third."

Solidly establishing himself as the Cinderella story of the Chili Bowl
Nationals, Altig nailed down the fourth and final lock-in to Saturday
night's championship finale aboard the family-owned Fontana-powered
Bullet Leasing No. 67a Stealth.

"It's a dream, I've watched these guys my whole life and they're where I
wanna be sometime," Altig stated. "You can't ask for much more, these
guys are great and I'm just glad to be a part of this deal."

Making his Midget racing debut, Sprint Car shoe Jason Martin made a bid
for a top four position but settled for fifth, with 14th-starter Wayne
Johnson a close sixth. Two-time Chili Bowl champion Dan Boorse advanced
from 15th and then rebounded from a cone violation to snare seventh, with
Tim Siner, Bobby East and Terry McCarl completing the top ten.

Bobby Michnowicz and Kruseman split victory honors in the Twin "B"
Mains. Kruseman, a two-time Chili Bowl champ, had advanced from 18th to
seventh when he was collected in a lap 17 tangle that also included
fifth-running Gary Taylor and sixth-runner Burke.

A record total of 267 different drivers have competed over the opening
four nights of the 21st Annual O'Reilly Chili Bowl Midget Nationals. All
will be in action during Oklahoma Dodge Dealers Championship Saturday,
which kicks off with Twin "K" Mains at 1:30 p.m.